"Our costs were about $200,000 more," said Lieber. "So it went from $40,000 to $240,000 for the electrical work alone."

I'm not sure how much of the excessive cost of hosting a convention in Chicago is due to unions. Laborers have the right to organize to protect themselves from being exploited but the unions and the city of Chicago need to realize that consumers would also like to protect themselves from being exploited.